Palin’s Plan — Senate in 2014?

Sarah Palin said she is considering running for U.S. Senate in 2014. Citing outside pressures, Palin said she is waiting “to see what the lineup will be and hoping that there…will be some new blood, new energy.”

In addition to Democratic incumbent Mark Begich, Palin would face a challenge in two fellow Republicans who have already declared their plans to run against Begich: Joe Miller, who defeated Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2010 GOP primary, only to lose to her after she staged a momentous write-in campaign, and Alaska’s current Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell.

Palin lead both Miller and Treadwell slightly in a poll conducted in May, but her support among Alaskans has been waning of late. Only 34 percent of all voters have a favorable opinion of her, though this information was gathered by the Public Policy Polling Firm, an establishment which describes itself as “Democratic leaning.” (By the way, how and why does a polling firm get away with proclaiming bias?)

Begich’s approval ratings, too, are up, and in a hypothetical match-up, the PPP has the Democrat defeating Mama Grizzly 54 to 38 percent.

And there is always the option of running as a third party candidate. Palin spoke earlier this month of the possibility of running as an independent if the GOP abandons its principles and “we have nowhere else to go.”

Still, such a radical move is unlikely. “The Republican Party is the Party of Lincoln and Reagan,” Palin said, “and the planks in the platform are right for this country. I stand strong on those planks. I just wish that more of our leadership, the movers and shakers within the Party, would stand strong on those planks with the rest of us…It tempts one to believe that if they in the Party abandon us, we have no other choice.”

Michael Barone says 2014 will be a year, like 2010 and 2012 were, that gives Republicans the chance to regain the Senate. Will Palin be Alaska’s answer? Is it all just a publicity ploy to plug her two new books, soon to be released? Time will tell, but in the meantime, Palin has vowed her commitment to “do whatever I could to help.”